I moved my hand to the back of Zephyr’s head, not ready to rouse him but wanting to touch. As soon as I did, pain shot from my finger through my palm. It jolted up past my shoulder and into my jaw, making it clench as I hissed out a breath.
Raising my hand for inspection proved a fruitless effort.
The sun was out, but my room wasn’t exactly bright, and turning on a light would wake Zephyr for sure. I needed to piss anyway. Wash my face. Freshen up a bit before calling room service to bring breakfast. For how enamored Zephyr had been with the process last night, Iwas looking forward to spoiling him one more time before…
My finger throbbed again.
“Fuck.” I flapped my hand as though that would rid me of the pain.
It hadn’t hurt this badly since the night he bit me.
I still couldn’t see and still needed to piss, so I slithered out from under Zephyr’s limp form and padded toward the bathroom. After pulling the door closed, I flipped on the light and squinted down at the offending finger.
The wound was mended, but something had changed. Dark, squiggly veins branched from the scars gone startlingly dark and outlined in red. It had been fine yesterday. Hell, it had been fine for weeks now.
My frown deepened as I touched it and was beset by another sensation entirely.
Lust.
Wanton desire.
My cock kicked between my legs like it had been called into action, and my body damn near wheeled itself around, ready to burst from the bathroom and throw itself at the incubus asleep in my bed. I would ravish him. Pin him down and force myself inside andtake… like he did.
This was hunger. A craving that demanded to be satisfied. A previously unknown feeling.
It was alarming, and foreign, and I knew…
I’d never kissed him.
I wanted to, more and more every day. But I didn’t because incubi were predatory creatures. Cock-sucking ticks. Fish that dwelled in muddy, shitty holes, and I’d become a noodler. I’d caught the fish, and he caught me.
Bile surged up from my gut, and I swallowed it down, leaving my throat raw and burning. It was exactly what I’dfeared: I’d been bewitched and also incredibly stupid. Spit in and open wound would be just as effective as spit the mouth. Zephyr had put his poison in my bloodstream the night we met. He’d set a trap, and I had been caught in it ever since.
I wasn’t in love with a prostitute.
I knew better than to feed a stray and welcome it into my home.
I would never share my bed with a man I’d known for a matter of weeks.
I was above all of that, and I’d suspected as much all along.
My aching hand curled into a fist, and the tremble started there. It spread to my shoulders and then down my spine. Rage—that was what this was. Not heartbreak. Certainly not regret.
The bathroom door creaked open, and a wide pane of light poured over Zephyr’s prone form. I crossed the room toward him, each step deliberate, a threat in motion.
He stirred seconds before I reached the bedside, perking up with his head wobbly and a smear of drool at the corner of his mouth.
I wanted to kiss him. Or shake him until those pretty eyes filled with fear. Or scream until the walls cracked. Instead, I held up my hand and asked in a low voice, “Did you do this?”
What I should have asked was why.
Had Luxe foisted him off on me, thinking I was an easy mark? I’d seen the petite dancer tittering with Colette that afternoon in the Dollhouse halls, casual as anything. He was clever enough to keep half of Vegas curled around his little finger, and generous enough, apparently, to share his prey withcoworkers.
It would seem sex demons weren’t the only predators in this town.
Zephyr sat up, brows scrunching together as he wiped the pajama sleeve across his lips. He looked at my wounded finger, then blushed, embarrassed.
“Yeah,” he said. “But you know it was an accident.”
